


The Dream-Quest of the Unknown John Doe

by dark_pookha



Category: Cthulhu Mythos - H. P. Lovecraft, Original Work
Genre: Community: HPFT, Cthulhu Mythos, Novella: The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath, Pastiche, Quests
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-17
Updated: 2020-05-17
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:00:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,872
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24242446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dark_pookha/pseuds/dark_pookha
Summary: When the moons Tywin and Firbolg come to their conjunction, then shall the insectile abominations make the leap across the void to my world. I must quest to the abandoned temple of the Old Ones in a pilgrimage and dream of the other world in a quest to stop them.for sinnersandsapphics The Dream Journal challenge at HPFTAn original story based on the Cthulhu mythos by H.P. Lovecraft and expanded on by many others. Particularly inspired by 'The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath'
Kudos: 1





	The Dream-Quest of the Unknown John Doe

Firbolg Waxing/Tyvin Full

The incandescent full moon we call Tyvin rose over the horizon. Black spots oozed across its surface, the swarm of indescribable insectile abominations that longed to invade this world. Had it been new and dark in the shadow of the globe, it would have been close enough for them to make the leap through the void and into my world. The second moon we call Firbolg waxed nearly full. Its light gave me vision to see my quest through the gnarled forest of Kashygoth to the temple of the Old Ones abandoned since the days of the Chaos Wars. Next month the moons cycles will align and by that time my quest must be complete.

The crumbled pillars and collapsed roof of the Old Ones temple pushed at my mind, warning me away from this place of sorrow. I opened it to the Old Ones ghosts and welcomed them in; blood, dread and slaughter filled me. They saw my quest and retreated, taking their payment of memories of my Lenore.

I tried to picture her, the love we had, but just met a blank wall. Had I known the price would be so high, I may have just let the insects come and devour me along with the rest of the world. The plague of them on the land would at least relieve me of the misery of existence without...who was it again? Lenore, that's right. Who was Lenore?

I shook my head from the irrelevancies of this strange pseudo-memory and set up my camp right in the middle of the ruins. The altar served as a make-shift stove where I roasted my meat, captured from the forest of Velgor the night before last. What type of creature it was, I knew not. Its meat was tough and stringy. Had it been poison, still I would have eaten it; nothing was worse than this cursed existence.

After my meagre sustenance, I retired to my tent and my sleeping bag. I zipped it tight around me, only my nose exposed to breath. The night in the temple would be cold beyond reckoning. I was glad the dreamer from all those years ago had brought me this artifact of his world; it was much warmer than furs and it was lighter as well.

I slept and began my quest.

In the dream, I walked the strange hard road. I had dreamt this dream before and examined the road. Hard, like stone, but straight and flat as no stone could be. Obviously man-made, but only magic could make something like this. I walked the road; the bright lights of my quest had grown closer with each night and each dream, but then I could go no further and the dream started over at the same point. I walked and walked, but drew no nearer my goal.

I had gone to the seer and she had told me that the dream would grow no more until I went on pilgrimage and found the spot between worlds that had been weakened. A long sojourn on the plains of Leng and then the cursed library that stood there and I had found the answer: the Old Ones had breached the barriers between the worlds and this was like the bruise on a fruit. It festered on our world and on all the worlds it touched. They had met their doom when they released some thing, some force that destroyed their physical forms utterly, leaving only these mean ghosts who gave truth in visions, but took payment in memories.

The distant bright lights called me as I trudged along the road. Large metal conveyances passed by me at speeds I could hardly comprehend. At first I had thought them beasts of some sort that had devoured the hapless victims, but as time went by I could see the people in them directing the metal monstrosity and deduced they were carriages of some sort.

One of them screeched to a halt in front of me with a smell of sulphur mixed with brimstone. I walked toward it and it lit up with red and blue flashing lights. I fell to my knees in rapture of this beauty.

"Up!" a man's voice shouted from somewhere on top of the conveyance, amplified to ear-splitting levels. My dream-logic allowed me to understand his language.

I stood and began walking toward the voice.

"Stop! Turn around and put your hands on your head!"

I obeyed and heard a creak, then a metallic slam.

A few seconds later, rough hands grabbed me. A second pair of hands searched me and found nothing but my wand, which must have looked to them like a mere stick of rowan. They threw it on the ground and I almost called out, but had they known its value, I'm sure it would have been taken from me.

The men turned me to them Their uniforms (for uniforms they must be with the dark pants and shirt, metal buttons and hat with an emblem on it that matched the one on their chest) made me uneasy and made me to think of the FedChi who roamed the Eastern plains and took all they met as slaves for their pink salt mines.

"Where are you going?" The one who held my wrists painfully asked.

"I seek the means to prevent the invasion of my world from the insectile abominations of Tyvin. Ere long, their world and mine will be in conjunction and I must greet them with a weapon they fear. My quest brings me here." I pointed at the bright lights in the distance.

"You can't go there," the other man said. The one holding me turned me to him. He was tall and human-looking but his eyes gave him away. The insects had invaded him. His eyes reflected me in too many facets, too many reflections of me to be normal.

I looked carefully at the one holding me; he was still human.

"I obey and will retreat."

The man holding me looked to the other, who nodded.

The man released me and I turned to walk away. The men both started to go to their conveyance when I stopped and grabbed my wand. They sensed some threat because, they both turned quickly. Metal objects were pulled from their belts to their hands.

"Freeze!" the insect-ridden one said.

I flicked my wand at him and he exploded in a shower of small roaches, beetles, mantises and ants. They swarmed toward me, but I created a wind and blew them into the road where they splattered and crackled as they hit the metal conveyances that rode on it at high speed.

"The fuck?" the other man asked and his metal object spit fire at me. A projectile ricocheted off the ground near me and a second one whistled close to my ear. I knew a third would be fatal, so I cursed him.

The bats came from nowhere and fell on him. A thousand nicks, a thousand licks and he was just a dry husk, void of blood. Conveyances slowed and the people stared. I used my wand and created the illusion of "all's' well" and they sped on their way.

I slid the body into a ditch at the side of the road and examined their vehicle. It had seats like a wagon, and it was emitting a rumbling sound while it still flashed red and blue lights. I climbed into the seat and closed the door. I poked at buttons and turned knobs, but couldn't make it go. The best I did was to turn off the lights. I left the carriage and closed the door behind me as I trudged away down the road toward the lights and my goal.

Then I awoke.

I was in my sleeping bag in the tent. The ghosts of the Old Ones swarmed me demanding to know if I had finished my quest. I stalled them, but then could no longer bear their cruel ministrations on my mind. They took payment for another day; the memory of my daughter Samantha with Leanne? Lefanu? I couldn't remember my wife's name. I had a wife? I know I had a daughter, but what was she like?

I wept.

I passed the day gathering food and firewood. It took far too long to find anything edible that hadn't been tainted by the madness of the Old Ones, but finally a persimmon tree came. I ate its bittersweet fruit, returned to sleep to pursue my bittersweet quest.

I was on the road again, the lights had grown closer and I hurried my pace. I could use my magic to speed myself, and I almost did, but if I arrived there with no magic, who knew what horrors awaited. So I trudged on.

The metal things sped by on their mysterious errands. Occasionally, one would slow, but I would wave it on with a smile and a small mental push of, "it's all right."

I passed a sign, but could not read it. The pictogram on it, though, clearly showed the place I was marching to. I decided to use my precious magic and touched my wand to the sign. Its meaning came clear.

"Cow-Dorning chemical plant entrance ahead 4 miles. Visitors must present their credentials."

So, that's why my quest had brought me here. It was a large alchemy facility. I had not known this world was capable of magic like alchemy. Now that I knew it, I could smell it on the air and tasted the chemicals on my tongue.

I pushed my pace. I didn't know how far a mile was, but I knew I could reach it today. Nor did I understand how something so bright and with no foliage could be a plant.

Just as the horizon glowed roseate with the coming dawn, I started to awaken. I had been close enough to see the looming gates of the alchemical factory. I howled in frustration and a guard noticed and walked toward me, the same metal weapon in his hand that the men in the metal conveyance had.

This time, the persimmon tree was rotten and I had to eat a small animal I caught. I cut the cancers away and made sure to cook it thoroughly before eating its oily and noisome flesh. The water had become polluted overnight, so I sighed and used magic again to freshen it. Now, I really could only spare a small amount for other purposes; I had to keep my main strength for the real goal.

The ghosts of the Old Ones took my memories of my parents and now I was an orphan adrift in this world where the two moons grew closer in conjunction everyday.

I slept again.

The man approached me with his weapon out.

"Just turn around, there's nothing here for you, beggar." He said as he brandished the metal thing at me.

"Please, sir, it is my most noble quest to seek out the thing that will stop the abominations from Tywin from invading mine own world." I had pulled my wand and had it in my hand, but like his compatriot, he dismissed it as no threat.

"Look, we don't need crazy homeless people here, turn around and go and I won't call the police." He stopped and held his weapon steady.

I put persuasion in my voice. "I have authorization; it's here in my pocket."

He shook his head, then lowered his weapon slowly with a quizzical look on his bland, broad face.

"Show me," he said.

I moved to him and showed him a piece of parchment with my directive from the king to do whatever was necessary to save the planet.

"This isn't..." he began.

I pushed on his mind more and he relented. He led me into the little hut by the tall fence and I made him sleep. He would dream of my world; if his mind survived, he would be stronger; if not, then he would die. It mattered not which.

I took his clothes and wore them myself. When I came out of the hut there was a line of conveyances waiting. I stopped each and made pretense of studying their papers then waved them in. When the last one had passed by, I left the gate open and went into the wonders of the factory.

I pulled the compass given me by the mad old king and it pointed deeper into the maze of pipes, metal wheels, dials and panels. The chemical smell was stronger now and I breathed shallowly.

I awoke, cursing and the ghosts took more memories from me. They wanted to take the quest from me, but I resisted them and fought back. They instead took the memory of my mentor, Graxius.

There was no food that day; I suspected the ghosts of deliberately ruining it to slow my quest, likely from pure maliciousness.

That night, I followed the compass and found my goal. It was a large tank, vaster than any I had seen before, ten times my height and equally as large in diameter. I walked around it, searching for some access. Finally I found a ladder at the side and climbed it. When I reached the top, there was a narrow walkway with a metal railing. I looked down and a crowd had gathered to watch me. One man began to climb the ladder. I touched it with my wand and it disappeared. He fell to the ground with a crunch. A projectile flew by me, and the man who had cast it with his metal weapon was admonished by another. He put the weapon away.

I ignored them and walked around the tank. I found a pipe that ran into near its apex and examined it. It had a wheel on it, which I tried to turn, but it was beyond my strength. I took the weapon from the holster on the clothes I wore and examined it. It had a handle that fit in my hand and an obvious place for my finger. I slotted my finger there and pulled, but nothing happened. I closed my eyes and pictured what the guard had done when he'd used it and it looked like I was doing the same.

I flipped a switch on it and tried again. This time it boomed in my hand and jerked so hard I nearly dropped it.

Shouts of consternation rose from below me.

I pointed it at the pipe and pulled my finger again. The projectile hit the pipe with a bang. Noxious gas sprayed from it but quickly settled toward the ground. I tried to avoid breathing it, but it was in vain. Poison, I could tell. This was my quest.

I used almost the last of my magic and opened a portal over the escaping gas from this world to the point where the insectile abominations would arrive on my world. It didn't flow fast enough, so I summoned a small air elemental to help blow it there. Then the world went dark and I fell. I fell from the tower, fell to the ground where the noxious gas that escaped the elemental and the portal had gathered. I fell into the bodies of the others poisoned by the gas.

Then I awoke on my world. I made to leave and the ghosts accosted me. They had no physical form; however, so their efforts were futile. I left the cursed place and made the trek to the conjunction point.

The gas had gathered in a pool under Tywin's shadow and I grinned. I shored up the sides so no more of it could escape, then I sat down to watch. Just two more days until the conjunction. I had no food, but I could make water. I would live to see them.

My dreams the next day were fresh and clear, but I didn't know the faces in them. I loved the woman and her daughter, but didn't know why. I loved the man who was teaching, but knew him not.

The time of the conjunction arrived and the abominations made the leap from Tywin to my world. They landed in the pool of gas and very few made it out of it. One leapt from the gas to die twitching and poisoned in front of me, its legs waving in the air and its mandibles twitching and slavering with foam.

When the rain of insects stopped, I calmly walked into the gas myself, nothing left for me here, no memories of anyone I cared about or who cared about me.

I inhaled.

I exhaled.

I inhaled.

I exhaled.

I inhaled.

I expired.

The ghosts of the Old Ones found me there and drew me back to them. They welcomed me as a friend and I joined their eternal penance. I had murdered to save my world. I had given up my memories of my family to become this ghost.

I would do it again.

At least, that's what I told myself as I devoured the memories of the occasional pilgrims who came to the temple for their vision quest.


End file.
